The web site for the channel IllusionTV has posted an interview with Syd Mead, where selected questions that viewers submitted, were asked.

As you might expect, some of the questions covered TRON. Syd answered them, and provided some details about his involvement in the film that I don't think have been mentioned anywhere else before. Particularly, how he went about designing the TRON electronic world.

On a side note, the documentary on Syd called Visual Futurist: The Art & Life of Syd Mead by Director Joaquin Montalvan is now available on sale in Japan, so Japanese fans of TRON and Syd's other works can now purchase the DVD in their country.

For fans in North America and Europe, the DVD can be purchased directly from Syd Mead's web site.

The KILLER APP Mod has been postponed until January 18th, 2008. All of us on the team really wanted to release it in time for the holidays as a gift to TRON fans, and to release it during the year of TRON's 25th Anniversary. But it's still not ready for release just yet. Our apologies.

We hope to reward your patience in the New Year, which is only a short time away now.

The site Tom's Games (part of Tom's Hardware) has an interview with TRON Director Steven Lisberger, discussing his upcoming film Soul Code. (See this previous article for more info on Soul Code.) It also touches upon the possibility of production commencing, on the TRON sequel that was announced a few months ago.

It's definitely a worthwhile read. Though it's a bit saddening, to hear Lisberger a little downbeat about the possibility of a sequel being made. But I completely understand where he's coming from: considering that plans for a sequel have materialized and then fizzled again, many times over. Disney just doesn't get TRON, and they have no clue what to do with it. It's been frustrating for Steven, and TRON fans, alike.

According to Metacritic.com, both TRON Arcade and Discs of TRON for the 360's Live Arcade have new release dates of February 1, 2008. But considering the tradition of Live Arcade games only being released on Wednesdays, this date is again suspect. February 1st in 2008 is not a Wednesday.

Well, so much for releasing these games "in honor" of TRON's 25th Anniversary. You guys at Disney missed the mark (and the point) by a country mile. Maybe that's Microsoft's fault, but either way: these games should have been released around the same time as the Anniversary for maximum impact. That opportunity has been lost.

Metacritic also has pages for both game titles, with scores and quotes from the first reviews. For TRON Arcade, the US version of the Official XBOX Magazine (OXM) gave a score of 70. For Discs of TRON, the US version of the magazine gave a score of of 80.

But the UK version of the Official Xbox Magazine (OXM UK) gave both TRON Arcade and Discs of TRON a score of 20, slamming both titles. OXM UK declares TRON Arcade "a train wreck", and says that for Discs of TRON "without even a two-player mode, this won't last you ten minutes". Ouch. Harsh words. Who to believe?

ModDB is holding their annual Mod of the Year contest for 2007 right now: and we at the LDSO team working on the TRON 2.0 KILLER APP Mod, would be very honored if TRON fans out there would vote for us if they like what they've seen of the mod so far.

If you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, see this earlier article that previews the TRON 2.0 KILLER APP Mod.

Voting is easy, just click on this link or the image to the right. You don't need to sign up or be a member of ModDB to vote. Then scroll down the KILLER APP Mod page until you see the large grey button, and click on it.

I don't think any of us on the team hold any illusions that we're going to win anything, or make it into the Top 10 choices. But that's not what we want, anyway. If we can make it into the Top 100, ModDB promises that news of these 100 mods will be "widely syndicated" across the web. This would, hopefully, mean that TRON 2.0 for the PC would garner some attention once more. Reminding people that this game exists, and that there's a great new mod for it. That's all we want.

The voting ends on December 20th, 2007, so please vote before then. And tell all your friends and other TRON fans, to vote as well!

UPDATE: The voting has been extended until December 22nd. So if you thought it was too late: please vote, if you haven't already!

"But the reasons to do it and the reason I did that one (the original TRON) was because it was so innovative and I understand that they’ve got a whole new batch of stuff like that . . . innovations that they want to use on this so that could be kind of fun." - Jeff Bridges

Bridges is also quoted as saying "I hear they’re going to pitch me one (the sequel) pretty soon so . . .", but the tone of his speech indicates that he was joking when he said this. Or was he?

An MP3 of the interview that you can listen to, is available from the site. The interviewer asks Bridges about a TRON sequel, at approximately the 7:45 mark.

I noticed that the interviewer misinterpreted Bridges as saying "dancebell". What he actually said, was "dancebelt". Bridges was referring to the belts the actors had to wear, that were part of their "electronic world" costumes. The belts were uncomfortable for the actors, and Bridges was joking about them as perhaps being a reason not to do a sequel.

TRON: The Ghost In the Machine co-writer Landry Walker has recently been posting quite a bit of preview artwork for issue #5 of the comic, if you know where to look.

A number of people seem to be confused about the status of the comic, so let me take this opportunity to clear things up.

There will be six issues. Four have been released, so far. Issue #4 came out in July. The release date for #5 is unknown at this time. According to the latest schedule update on SLG Publishing's site: it will not be out by January 2008. However, this could very well change. If the date becomes known, I'll post an update.

It's taken a lot longer, and been a bit more difficult, than I expected. But the upgrade for this site is very close to being complete. I'll be fixing any other minor problems that remain, over the next few days.

Hope you like the new look and features.

Note that the site looks a lot better in Firefox and Opera, than it does in Internet Explorer. I'll try my best to improve the appearance in IE, but no guarantees. I'd recommend switching to Firefox or Opera, anyway. :)

Mike Bonifer, the publicist for the film TRON, has posted an article on his web site where he recounts the work he did for the film.

He discusses how even today, when he mentions that he worked on TRON: people's eyes light up at the mention. Bonifer also remarks that revealing he worked on TRON has become "a special badge of honor".

A short biography on Bonifer can be found on this page at TRON-Sector.

The TRON 2.0 KILLER APP Mod is either one of the best or worst kept secrets in the TRON 2.0 PC gaming community right now. And as of late, it seems to have become the latter. Because recently I've noticed hits to this site, with search terms like killer app mod download.

I didn't want to announce or advertise this project (which is the one I was referring to in this earlier post) here on this site, because I prefer to announce things when they are done and ready. Announcing projects early, usually leads to less enthusiasm when it's released. It's always better when something is an unexpected surprise. Also, sometimes even with the best of intentions: unforeseen circumstances can arise, and the project can run away from you. This is definitely what has happened with the KILLER APP Mod.

But since I am seeing people searching for information about the mod, I've decided to post some info about its current status.

The KILLER APP Mod is almost complete, and will be privately beta tested by the contributors to the project. Most of whom are members of LDSO. Contributors to the mod are Zook_One, Kain-Xavier, 9VoltChicken, Raven, win3k, Mor.Evil-1, Load"*",8,1, and myself.

Some of the major features of the KILLER APP Mod are:

New Multiplayer Characters such as Sark, Thorne, the DataWraith, etc. by Zook_One

New Multiplayer Skins by Kain-Xavier, which are improved versions of the skins from his earlier KMX Skins Mod

The mod is currently not available for download anywhere, and won't be until it's complete. The release of the mod will occur in December. I won't go into all the various factors that are responsible for the slow progress on the project. But suffice to say, the mod is nearly ready and will be released before the year's end. The team is committed to completing this project no later than Christmas, and probably earlier than that.

Before I conclude, I'll just add that the preview trailer for the mod was made many months ago and does not accurately represent the current state of the KILLER APP Mod. Many improvements and additions have been made since that time. Some of the Light Cycle colors have been revised to look different, new colors have been added, and the Multiplayer Character skins have since been improved.

If you'd like to find out some more information on the mod, and see more up to date screenshots, then visit the following links:

Back in May, it was confirmed by Disney Interactive that remakes of the TRON Arcade game and Discs of TRON would eventually appear on XBOX Live Arcade for the 360. The games were to be released "in celebration" of TRON's 25th Anniversary. Yet here we are in October, and they still haven't been released. Way to miss the point, Disney.

So when are they going to be released? In July, I discovered a page on the MSN Games site that listed both TRON Arcade game and Discs of TRON as having a September 30th release date, which has come and gone. Since then, I've learned that Live Arcade games are only released on Wednesdays. And since the 30th was a Sunday  that, plus the fact that the 30th was the last day of Q3 2007  leads me to believe that the date was simply a placeholder in absence of concrete information.

Various gaming sites and even the Disney Interactive site itself, have listed the release dates variously as Summer 2007, Q3 2007, and now finally "TBA". On Major Nelson's site (he's a member of the XBOX Marketing team at Microsoft), it shows that this Wednesday's (as of this writing) Live Arcade release is neither of the TRON games. So apparently, the date from the MSN Games wasn't even good as a rough indicator of when we could expect the games. So basically, at this point, we have no real idea as to when the games will be released.

Perhaps there's a slim chance the releases are being held up, due to the fact that Microsoft is preparing a version of Live for Windows that will bring it up to par with what XBOX users expect from the service. At the moment, Live can only be used in Windows games that are Live-enabled (Shadowrun and Halo 2). Microsoft is planning to break Live out of the games and make it a separate application that can be run at any time, independently. They also plan to bring a version of the service to Windows XP, rather than keeping it Vista-exclusive as originally intended. The improved Games for Windows Live is supposed to make its appearance in November. Maybe Disney Interactive is preparing Windows versions of the games as well, and will release both 360 and Windows versions simultaneously? Who knows.

I knew something was up when I kept seeing hits to this site, with the search term "TRON 2010". My immediate thought was, where are people getting this from? How do they know to expect the film in 2010?

That is, if this project gets off the ground at all. A listing on IMDB does not automatically mean a sequel is definite. A lot of speculative projects appear on IMDB, only to disappear again just as quickly.

Anyone out there with IMDB Pro access, that would care to drop me a line? Are any more details available on the Pro site? :)

Over the next few days, I will be experimenting with updates for this site. I'm going to try and improve the functionality, while at the same time reduce the visual clutter. I'll also be doing some other updates as well, and may even take a crack at giving the site more of a TRON visual theme (but no promises).

Please bear with me as I experiment with updates. My experimentation may cause some links to become broken, or make a mess of the site's visual presentation. I'll eventually get everything sorted out. Hopefully you will find the updates a welcome improvement.

It's been just a couple of days since I stated that a TRON sequel would not be coming "any time soon" or "at least not one directed by Lisberger". It seems that I may not be correct about the former, but was correct about the latter?

According to the Hollywood Reporter, newcomer director Joseph Kosinski is "in final negotiations" to direct a new TRON sequel for Disney. (Newcomer, in the sense that until now he has mainly done television commercials.) Sean Bailey and Steven Lisberger are producing. Lost writers Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are writing the story.

Since I'm not familiar with the work of anyone on this project other than Lisberger, I can't make a judgment call at this time. But I will say that I am glad Disney has apparently decided to give up its plans for a remake, and is interested in a sequel instead. I imagine that when fans met the news of a remake a couple of years ago with much derision, that Disney quickly realized it was not a good idea to pursue that route.

Now after having said all that . . . this news gives me some hope, but I'm going to treat this as an "I'll believe it when I see it" item.

Back a few months ago, when it was announced that Jeff Bridges would be taking part in the upcoming Iron Man film, it was then that I knew there was no hope of a TRON sequel in time for the 25th Anniversary.

Now, it's been announced that Steven Lisberger (the Director of TRON) has written a script that he's going to direct, called Soul Code. The premise of this film sounds a lot like the film Brainstorm, with a dash of TRON thrown in.

While I'm happy for Mr. Lisberger and look forward to seeing Soul Code, this also means that a TRON sequel is not coming any time soon. At least, not one directed by Lisberger. But perhaps, if Soul Code is a success, Disney will wake from its stupor and finally give Steven the chance to make that TRON sequel almost everyone has been waiting for.

As an interesting aside, the Variety article that is the original source of this news, mentions that: "A 2003 videogame tie-in, however, sold extremely well". Really? Again, judging by the lack of support or even mention of TRON 2.0 on Disney Interactive's site, you sure as hell wouldn't know it.

I think it's safe to say, that Boxhat is gone for good. The site has been down for over a month, and I've had no contact from Bigred.

Luckily, I created mirrors for most of the TRON 2.0 files that were hosted on Boxhat, in anticipation of temporary or even permanent downtime. For the few links that are now broken on the All Files page, I will see about trying to create mirrors for those files as well.

I'd just like to say thanks to Bigred for keeping the site going as long as he did. I have good memories from the early days on the site. But toward the end, the spark was gone.

Both TRON-Sector and and LDSO will now carry on with TRON and TRON 2.0 discussion, but we won't ever forget Boxhat.

As you all know, I haven't posted any updates for a month. Suffice to say that a combination of work, other interests, and needing a break, all contributed to the lack of updates. Working on the best (worst?) kept secret project for TRON 2.0 has also been a contributing factor, which I'm not ready to announce here until it's completely finished. (Though you can find details on it if you know where to look.)

But I felt it was time to stop neglecting this site, and to catch up on various TRON news items. So over the next few days, I will be doing my best to make up for lost time. Expect to see several updates, including my long overdue review of issue #4 of the TRON comic.

I'll also be doing at least a couple of off-topic posts, that hopefully you will all still find interesting. If not, you can always just ignore them. The majority of posts will always remain TRON related, no need to worry there.

LDSO member Xistence has brought back his personal site: where he talks about the projects he is working on, including the upcoming The Digital Messiah or TDM for short.

You can visit the site by clicking on the now active link in the grey sidebar on the right.

However, it is somewhat sad news to learn that he has decided to no longer create TDM as a total conversion for TRON 2.0, but rather as a conversion for Unreal instead. But I can understand his frustration in working with the poorly documented and supported Lithtech engine, that TRON 2.0 uses. Creating any significant modifications for TRON 2.0 is an enormous challenge. There are severe limitations in what you can do, unless you have the source code. It's just better to move to a well supported game engine.

It's a shame because TRON 2.0 is so well suited to the concept of TDM, and there's a pre-existing audience there who would be instantly attracted to TDM's virtual world. Not to mention, TRON 2.0 can use all the help it can get. But I still look forward to playing TDM on Unreal, once it's released. :)

The second is an interview with John Knoll at the site Computerworld, about CGI during the last 25 years in general, and TRON specifically. Knoll did not have anything to do with TRON as far as I'm aware, but he is the Visual Effects Supervisor at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) which certainly makes him qualified to speak about the subject.

While searching for any other significant 25th Anniversary stories, I did happen to stumble on to a couple of others that I found interesting. They don't have anything to do with the 25th Anniversary, but they are about TRON and I thought were worth sharing.

One of the articles is about the TRON remake rumor that circulated a couple of years ago. The author puts into words what I believe most TRON fans were thinking. "God no, not a remake. Please Disney, don't screw up TRON!"

The other one compares TRON to William Gibson's Neuromancer. I hadn't really given this notion much thought over the years, particularly since I haven't read Neuromancer and because TRON was released before the novel was published. But I can see how the two could be compared directly.

What was particularly interesting to me, is that in reading the article, it suddenly became obvious that: while Neromancer couldn't have influenced TRON, Neuromancercould have influenced TRON 2.0. And there is definitely some evidence to prove this. In early concept art for the game, the DataWraiths were called NetRunners. And it was by reading this article, that I realized Neuromancer and the series of Gibson novels that followed, had originally coined the name NetRunner. I'm guessing though, that Disney and Monolith dropped the NetRunner name, to avoid any potential legal action by Gibson or his publisher.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has both read William Gibson's novels and played TRON 2.0, if you think there are any more similarities between the two.

Props go out to TRON-Sector member Sketch, who originally found the two 25th Anniversary article links.

Something that no one has been been able to answer, is when the TRON Live Arcade games are going to be released. If you visit the various major gaming sites, all you'll get is a vague "Summer" or "Q3 2007" release date for the TRON Arcade and Discs of TRON remakes. The site 1UP.com lists Release Date: 06/15/07, but this is obviously incorrect since the games have yet to show themselves.

However, I believe I have uncovered the actual release dates of the games. Which can be found HERE and HERE.

And just in case this information gets pulled, I've taken screenshots of the pages. They come from the MSN Games site. Seeing as these pages are hosted by Microsoft's MSN service, I'd say the chance of these dates being legit is very high.

And the release date for both games is (drum roll please) . . . September 30th, 2007.

Wow. Far later than I ever would have guessed. Not even close to the 25th Anniversary date, which just passed by a few days ago (July 9th). It's no wonder a lot of sites have stopped quoting "Summer" and switched to "Q3 2007" instead. And the games will just barely squeak by, under the definition of a Q3 release, at that.

There's a small chance that this information is incorrect, of course. But if Disney Interactive was going to release these games soon, wouldn't they have announced this at the recent E3 2007? Instead, it appears they said absolutely nothing about them. This lends credence to my conclusion, that these dates are correct and the games are not coming out as soon as we all might have expected.

LDSO member Mor.Evil-1 has made a new Disc Arena map called DA-7982 based on the Discs of TRON arcade game, to celebrate the 25th Anniversary!

Sample screenshots of DA-7982 by Mor.Evil-1

You can download the map from HERE. If you don't know how to use custom maps in TRON 2.0, I suggest reading this guide to help you out.

July 21st UPDATE: A problem with the map was discovered, so Mor.Evil-1 has released an updated version to fix the issue. Please delete any older version that you have, and re-download the map to get the latest version.

It was 25 years ago today, that TRON premiered in theaters on July 9th, 1982. I won't go into a long speech about how great I think the film is. By now, everyone reading this site should know I think the film is a classic. And today's news post at TRON-Sector expresses the same kind of sentiment that I would only repeat in a slightly different way. So I'll just let that post speak for me. (Especially since, I helped out a little in writing it. But the main credit goes to TheReelTodd.)

Instead, I'd like to focus on a couple of things.

First, doing a quick search of the internet: I ended up discovering that while everyone is talking about the upcoming Xbox Live TRON arcade game remakes and the (very uninspiring) Anniversary pin, nobody is currently talking about the film itself or asking "where on earth is a sequel". Well, again, except for TRON-Sector and the LDSO site. There was the LA CityBeat article about the Anniversary, but that was published back in May.

Although not entirely unexpected (I've become very cynical about it all), it's still a bit disappointing to see no real discussion about the film itself. I guess people just can't be bothered to remember. We'll have to wait for the games to be released on Xbox Live before the majority will even discover that the 25th Anniversary has arrived, I imagine.

Second, and more importantly . . . I'm betting a lot of you have been wondering for a long time, what's up with that petition in the grey sidebar on the right. The one about TRON 2.0. "Is it ever going anywhere?" you might ask. "Will it do any good? Why should I sign it?"

Well, I would like to thank everyone who took the time to sign the petition. Because as I write this, several hard-copies are making their way to Disney right now. If there was any time to bring the future of TRON to the attention of the staff at Disney: it's now, at the film's 25th Anniversary.

While the petition was mainly intended to persuade Disney Interactive Studios to bring back support for TRON 2.0 on the PC (and Mac), and even create an update or expansion for it, it also serves as an example of fan interest in a sequel TRON film. I mean, who on that list that want more new TRON games, would also not want a new film? The two go hand-in-hand. That's why copies have been sent to Disney Film Studios as well, accompanied by a letter explaining this very logic.

Will the petition work? I don't know. But it can't be said that myself, and those who signed it, didn't try their best. That's all we can do.

Even though hard-copies have been sent, the petition will remain open and continue to accept signatures. Also, keep your eyes open over at TRON-Sector for some more information about this petition and what more you can do to help. The hope is that people within Disney will keep an eye on the petition as the number of signatures continues to grow. There's no reason to stop, until a new game or a sequel film is announced. The more people sign, the more Disney will realize people are interested in more new TRON items.

I'd like to thank the following people for their cooperation and assistance, and for helping to bring the petition to the attention of the right people at Disney. DaveTRON (for his advice), Sketch (for providing the beautiful cover to the petition, which is also available as a wallpaper on TRON-Sector), and TheReelTodd (for motivation and for the great 25th Anniversary news article on the front page). Thanks also go out to LDSO member Load"*",8,1 for the link to the Anniversary pin on the Disney site.

P.S. Curious, that today of all days, this site is about to reach 30,000 hits, after being in existence for about 18 months. It took my TRON 2.0 Unofficial FAQ site 4 years to reach about the same number of hits. The TRON 2.0 News site will overtake it any time now. What a coincidence to have that fall on the same day as the Anniversary date. :)

A while back I purchased the DVDVisual Futurist: The Art & Life of Syd Mead. I thought I would write a review of it so that people could get a taste of what it's like, and determine if it's worth buying. So I decided to sit down and write this: giving my honest opinion on the documentary itself, the features of the DVD, its packaging, and its overall presentation.

When first playing the DVD, you are greeted with a very simple and bare-bones menu that either allows you to play the documentary, or go to a screen with a chapter list that lets you jump to various points in the feature. There are no extras: such as any behind-the-scenes vignettes that show what went into the production of the documentary, director commentary, or footage from the screening at the Dances with Films festival where it premiered with Syd Mead himself attending. Which is a shame. However, Director Joaquin Montalvan has posted such clips online. So I encourage everyone to check them out. They're called Visual Futurist Q&A Video and Syd Mead Candid Video Footage.

The documentary itself starts off by showing a montage of Syd's work, and it isn't until almost three minutes into the feature that the documentary proper begins. It's an interesting choice to start Visual Futurist this way. If there's one thing that can be said, it's that the man's artwork certainly speaks for itself. It's easy to just sit there and watch, drawing in the detail and richness of each work, and letting your mind wander off into these realities. Realities that are extremely functional and realistic in appearance. Some people might find this section a bit boring, but I didn't mind it at all.

Then Syd Mead himself appears, in what can only be described as his "workshop". Sitting at a table, drawing, he begins to tell you about his background. As you listen, he makes no bones about the fact that he is very confident, considers himself very intelligent, and he enjoys his success. Who can blame him, really? For someone like me, who isn't that familiar with Syd's background or early career: this section of the documentary is very enlightening. It takes us from his earliest days as a professional industrial designer, all the way to his film design career. I gather that most of the public, like me, will also only be familiar with the latter  his work on Blade Runner being the most notable, followed by TRON. And it's his credit in the film Blade Runner, for which this documentary is named. Visual Futurist.

As the documentary progresses, we cover his careers at Ford, U.S. Steel, Philips, and many other companies. Eventually we're told about how Syd found himself without a job at one point, and decided to start his own company. Then in the late seventies, Hollywood entered a phase where they sought out designers to become attached to films, and this is how Syd entered the movie industry. His first work was on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and from there he entered a whirlwind period where he designed for picture after picture. Blade Runner, TRON, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Aliens, Short Circuit, Mission to Mars . . . the list goes on and on.

The lengthiest segments pertaining to the films he worked on are for Blade Runner and TRON, as you might expect. Steven Lisberger (the Director of TRON) and Richard Taylor (Visual Effects and Computer Graphics Supervisor for TRON) appear throughout the documentary, commenting on various facets of Syd's career and not singularly on TRON. While all of the people in the documentary have interesting and intelligent things to say  including Mead himself  I found Lisberger's comments to be the most entertaining and eloquent. You literally can see the gears turning in his mind like an intricate and precise machine, with his thoughts and their enunciation coming at a rapid-fire pace.

Since this is a TRON-based site, I will keep the coverage of the documentary focused on the TRON portion. But I can tell you without hesitation that I enjoyed all the segments. Especially the one regarding Blade Runner. Blade Runner is definitely another one of my favorite films, and I can't wait for it to finally be released on DVD this year. It's been a long time coming.

The TRON segment of the documentary shows how Syd is responsible in large part for the look of the TRON electronic world, and is completely responsible for items such as Sark's Carrier, the Tanks, the Light Cycles, the MCP, the prison cells, and Yori's apartment. He also designed the TRON font, and even had some influence on the costumes. We are shown many of his concept sketches that resulted in the final look in the film, while Lisberger and Taylor comment throughout. Lisberger felt that Mead's work was "cutting edge" and exactly what they were looking for. And Syd himself states that his work in the film and the film itself, had an enormous impact on the youth watching it at the time. That most of the people in the computer graphics industry today, credit his work and the film TRON as being responsible for leading them into their profession.

A notable aspect of the documentary is its soundtrack, presented in Dolby 5.1. Throughout the film we hear composer Richard Souther's themes, that he specifically composed for Visual Futurist. Souther's ethereal compositions often evoke memories of Vangelis' score for the film Blade Runner, and they are a clear homage to that film. Thus, the music fits the subject matter and the tone of the documentary perfectly. In fact, the music is so good that I would recommend purchasing the separately available soundtrack CD wholeheartedly.

With regard to the aesthetics of the packaging itself, the DVD comes in an Amaray keepcase with a somewhat bland wraparound label. The design is quite minimalist, and perhaps even unexciting for a DVD featuring a documentary about one of the world's foremost artists. And I don't know if it's intentional or not, but the type on the label and the insert booklet has a blurred effect that makes it a bit hard to read. You can't pick it up in the scans above, but it is there. Considering the price for the DVD itself ($29.99 U.S.) and the shipping (anywhere from about $7-$10 U.S.), I was personally hoping for a bit more of a refined looking package than what I got.

Still, in the end, it's the documentary itself that matters most. And in this area, the DVD does not disappoint. The transfer quality of the film seems very good. Clocking in at approximately one hour and forty-five minutes, it quite extensively covers Syd Mead's career and shows us an incredible number of his works. The film never becomes slow or boring (except perhaps at the very beginning, as I stated earlier) and is a fascinating look at a fascinating man. It's no wonder the film won an award for audience appreciation when it premiered at the Dances with Films festival.

Updates include screenshots and descriptions for the latest custom maps, a guide on how to install and use these maps (which was duplicated from a page already on this site), the best way to play TRON 2.0 on a widescreen monitor, and more.

I've also added answers to some common questions in the "Top FAQs" section, such as: does TRON 2.0 run on Windows Vista, can the onscreen HUD be turned off (for screenshots), and will TRON 2.0: Killer App for the Xbox work on the Xbox 360.

At this time, I don't personally use Windows Vista and have avoided it completely. I will eventually get around to installing and using it later this year, when I upgrade my computer. Once I do, you can expect many updates to the FAQ with specific advice for running the game on Vista.

It hasn't been announced yet on SLG Publishing's site, but I'm calling it. It's obvious that Issue #4 won't be released this month. If the release schedule still hasn't been updated this far into June, and TRON #4 doesn't appear on Diamond Comics' next two shipping lists . . . it's a fait accompli. There was a remote chance it could have shipped on the 27th and this had yet to be announced, but the shipping lists prove otherwise.

Now, I hate to be all gloom and doom. But I have a couple of things to say that fall into that category.

First off, I hope SLG understands that all these delays must be killing interest in the comic. I've seen evidence on the message boards of various comic sites, where people became fed up with waiting for each issue's release. Not everyone is as patient as a long-time fan like me. More to the point, why are these tremendous delays continuing? Has SLG bitten off more than it can chew, with regards to the Disney licenses? I think so. It's been over a year since the release of the first issue, and we still don't have Issue #4 in our hands.

1Up.com seems to think that the games were released on June 15th, if you look at both of those pages carefully. (Notice Release Date: 06/15/07.) That's news to me. If they were already out, I think I would've heard of it by now and it would be plastered all over the internet game sites.

I also found this article on the site Destructoid, where the author slams the TRON Arcade game on Live. I would slam it too, but for a different reason. Not because I think the games won't be any good (I'm sure they will be), but because I feel they're a weak offering from Disney to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of TRON. Rather than make something new, they just re-release the old arcade games in new packaging. Big whoop. But that's just my personal opinion.

What's really amusing about this article, is that the author is bitching about the TRON Arcade game because he thought it was going to be a total revamp that featured online 3-D Multiplayer Light Cycle racing. Hey pal, here's a tip. Your wish was granted long ago. It's called TRON 2.0! This is what I'm always talking about . . . the cluelessness with regards to the release of TRON 2.0. People still don't know about this game, even years after release. It's really sad.

What's even more sad, is that Disney Interactive has recently added pages to their site to advertise TRON Arcade and Discs of TRON. Yet TRON 2.0 is completely absent now. How screwed up is that?

Anyhow, as soon as I find out when the games are being released on Xbox Live, I'll report it and fill you all in on the details. Unfortunately though, since they will strictly be available for the Xbox 360: I won't be buying or playing them. I don't want to buy a 360, thanks Disney and Microsoft. So I won't be able to review them first hand, and will have to rely on second hand reviews.

The event was hosted by American Cinemathique and Geek Monthly magazine on Sunday June 17th, at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California. TRON was presented, together with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, as part of a double bill feature.

According to this Reuters press release, Disney Interactive Studios will have its budget increased by $30 million this year ($130 million, up from $100 million). And within the next five years, it will ramp up to $350 million per year.

Let's hope for their sake that they devote some of that new funding to better customer support, and making more innovative games. Who knows, maybe there's a chance we'll see another new TRON game some day after all. (And maybe another TRON film, too.)

If you've already downloaded and run both dso_mp_setup.exe and dso_mp_patch1-1.exe, you do not need this map pack. It's simply being offered as a new alternative, that only requires you to download one file instead of two. This is the .REZ file that is created after running both programs.

This new map pack collects previously separate maps, into one convenient to download file.

You can delete the following files if you have them (they've been merged into this map pack):MORS-DM-1.5A.REZDM-2.5.REZMORS-DM-2.5A.REZMORS-DM-2.5B.REZDM-O1LADR.REZDM-02LADR.REZDM-03LADR.REZMorsMap.REZ

In the process of updating these map packs, I also decided to give some of the .REZ files new, more logical names. One of the changes made is that I have done away with the "Part" and "Full" suffixes, because they made the filenames longer and a bit more confusing than they needed to be.

The renaming of these files may create some initial confusion in the short term, but I think it will be beneficial in the long run.

Old Name

New Name

Suspect_A_Full.REZ

LC_Pack_1.REZ

Suspect_B_Full.REZ

LC_Pack_2.REZ

Suspect_C_Part.REZ

LC_Pack_3.REZ

Suspect_D_Full.REZ

LC_Pack_4.REZ

Suspect_E_Part.REZ

LC_Pack_5.REZ

DA_Pack1_Part.REZ

DA_Pack_1.REZ

DM_Pack1_Part.REZ

DM_Pack_1.REZ

I've also added some new file mirror links, so that in case one site goes down: there is a good chance that file can still be downloaded from another site. I'll continue to add file mirrors over time.

I've been saving some items for slow news periods, as we seem to be in right now. This is one of those items. A very interesting essay about TRON the film and its games.

A number of passages within the article really struck me, because they echo similar thoughts that I have, on the same issues. Particularly when it comes to video games.

Video games, too, were more futuristic in the early '80s than they are now. Looking at the popular games of today, one says "oh, look, football" or "oh, look, crime." A movie based on the modern video game aesthetic would look like an hour and a half of ESPN, or in the case of the crime games, an hour and a half of... well, I guess that'd be ESPN again. Right now we're in an unfortunate phase in which game designers aim for photorealism but fall short: it's the worst of both worlds, as the results are both unconvincing and ugly. But when I was a kid, game designers knew very well that they didn't have a prayer of achieving photorealism and so didn't try. If today's games try to crawl as far as they can into the "representation" corner of Scott McCloud's famous pyramid, 1980s games staked out their territory over on the right, on the "iconic" side, and in the case of works like Qix and Tempest and Vectron, up into the realm of abstraction as well. McCloud points out that iconic forms can be much more involving than more realistic ones, and that was certainly my experience: I spent much of my youth in the cool, clean, colorful world of pixels and vectors. So Tron's geometric citadels and abstract landscapes felt like home to me.

This is exactly why I feel such a connection to TRON and TRON 2.0, and what I believe is wrong with the video game industry today. It's become all about graphic realism at the expense of everything else. What's wrong with playing a game that isn't ultra-realistic? Maybe we could all use a little more abstraction, and not less? More games should take us away from the real world for a time. Not attempt to be an exact mirror of it.

I'm not saying realism in games should go away. Rather, that this obsession with improving graphics needs to relax a bit, with both developers and consumers. Focus some more on those little things called story and gameplay, that are being reduced to almost an afterthought during game development.

It seems the author got his wish, by the way. He wanted to see Discs of TRON on a console, and now we've got it.

Special thanks goes out to 9VoltChicken for pointing me to this essay.

The most recent issue of LA CityBeat (at this time, cover is pictured at left) has an article about the 25th Anniversary of TRON.

In it, the author goes into some of the details concerning how the special effects for the film were created, and how TRON was ahead of its time. Perhaps a little too far ahead of its time, as summed up by this quotation from the article.

Lisberger’s enthusiasm and love for Tron is still going strong 25 years later. Unfortunately, audiences back then didn’t reflect his enthusiasm, and Tron failed to meet its box office expectations. Chalk it up to poor timing or mismanaged marketing – it opened one month following E.T. – but perhaps the message of the film was a bit anachronistic.

And in another quote from Steven Lisberger, I think he sums up the current situation regarding the possibility of a sequel very succinctly.

“These are not the times for what we were talking about,” Lisberger ponders. “If anything embodies the times we live in, it’s Johnny Depp’s character in Pirates of the Caribbean. He’s ready to take every chance on any fly-by-night scheme to get rich.”

Also mentioned in the article, is that a film festival called Greatest Geek Movie Year Ever! will be showing TRON and other memorable films released in 1982, at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California through June 15-17, 2007.

May 30th UPDATE: TRON will be part of a double bill along with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on Sunday June 17th at 5:00 PM. If you'd like to order advance tickets, they can be obtained from HERE.

The Visual Effects Society (an organization that brings together Visual Effects professionals from all different entertainment markets) recently released a "50 Most Influential Visual Effects Films of All Time" list, as first reported in a thread on the TRON-Sector site.

As you can see, TRON placed 6th on the list . . . closely behind such classics as 2001, Blade Runner, and Star Wars. This is actually a very impressive showing. Being considered worthy to be in the company of films like these, is no small feat.

Director Joaquin Montalvan's documentary Visual Futurist: The Art & Life of Syd Mead, which chronicles the life and career of the legendary artist  and won an award at the 2006 Dances with Films festival for achieving the highest audience appreciation rating in the festival's history  is now available for sale directly from Syd Mead's site itself.

This is something I personally have long been waiting for! Ever since I first became aware of the documentary two years ago, I've been anxiously awaiting the news of a DVD release. Well, it's finally here! This is the kind of 25th Anniversary gift to the fans, that every die-hard TRON fan really wants.

The price of the DVD is $29.99 U.S., plus an additional $7.50-$10.00 U.S. shipping depending on where you live. The order form states that delivery to most (though not all) European countries is possible.

Below is a sample clip of the documentary, which includes moments with TRON Director Steven Lisberger and TRON Computer Graphics supervisor Richard Taylor. A higher quality version of the clip is available on Syd's site (requires QuickTime).

For those of you that don't know (and I expect there to be very few): Syd was one of the main conceptual artists for TRON, along with Jean "Moebius" Giraud, Andy Probert, and Peter Lloyd.

Well, we finally have concrete proof that TRON and Discs of TRON are being released for the Xbox 360 on Xbox Live Arcade. Disney Interactive Studios has released screenshots and a press release, with some details about the two titles. The games have been developed by a studio named Backbone Charlottetown. (Never heard of them.)

Both games will indeed feature enhanced graphics modes (as well as "classic" unenhanced modes), and will also have online multiplayer. There is still no exact release date or price yet, though. (The release is said to be in the "summer". I'm guessing it will be around July 9th, which is the date of the film's release in 1982.)

So it seems this is the extent to which Disney will acknowledge the 25th Anniversary of TRON. No HD DVD or Blu-Ray release of the film, and no sequel. A bit disappointing. The fact that these games are going to be enhanced updates of the classics are nice, but I personally was hoping for something more. (And as long as they remain Xbox 360 exclusives, I won't be buying them.)

But I'll at least give DI credit for being smart enough to enhance the games. I was actually expecting them to just be straight ports. Which would not have made them a compelling buy for most people, I'm certain.

TRON Light Cycles: Classic (left) and Enhanced (right)

TRON Tanks: Classic (left) and Enhanced (right)

TRON MCP: Classic (left) and Enhanced (right)

TRON I/O Tower: Classic (left) and Enhanced (right)

Discs of TRON: Classic (left) and Enhanced (right)

UPDATE: Here are links to a couple of videos, showing TRON and Discs of TRON in action. Thanks to MChilds for these links.

May 4th UPDATE: It turns out Backbone Charlottetown is a division of Backbone Entertainment, aka Digital Eclipse. Now it all makes sense. Digital Eclipse did TRON 2.0: Killer App for the Gameboy Advance. I wish these game companies would stop changing their names practically every year.

There are no other details available at this time. I'm betting Disney Interactive Studios probably isn't too happy that the public is finding out so quickly about these, before they're even announced.

From the little information that is available, it looks like the original TRON Arcade game will also be appearing on Xbox Live Arcade for the 360.

I think it would be foolish to not make these new TRON games cross-platform, and keep them Xbox 360 only. If they're really serious about going through with these, then at least fight fire with fire by enhancing them and releasing them on as many platforms as possible. Including the one where the most people are playing the originals using MAME, the PC. Make it available on Games for Windows Live. And how about the Wii, taking advantage of the Wiimotes?

April 26th UPDATE: It seems DI has confirmed that TRON and Discs of TRON are coming, in a sly way.

Thanks again to MChilds for this latest news tip.

Unfortunately, I won't be "ready" to combat Sark if he's going to appear on the Xbox 360 only. In fact, let's have a couple of polls . . . to see what platforms people want to see these games appear on, and what they expect out of the games.

December 6th, 2008 UPDATE:These polls are now closed. Please see this article for the results. Thank you to everyone who participated in the polls!

While this is a commendable move and I wish DI the best of success with this release . . . why anyone would want to pay for Discs of TRON when they can play it for free on any one of the various ports of MAME, I really couldn't tell you. Of course, obtaining the ROM files for the game without actually owning the arcade machine is technically illegal. But do any of you honestly believe that the vast majority of people playing DOT on MAME, actually own the machine?

Discs of TRON is also available as an unlockable on TRON 2.0: Killer App for the Gameboy Advance, and is a decent (if not incredible) emulation of the game. A used GBA and Killer App cartridge could probably be picked up at a reasonable enough price, to be another compelling alternative to the release on Xbox Live Arcade. Especially due to the fact that you'd be getting multiple games in one. (If you can find the cart, that is.)

It's possible the game may be updated with new gameplay or graphics for Live Arcade, but I highly suspect it will just be a straight port with minimal enhancements (if any). We'll see, I guess.

The Boxhat site has been down for almost 24 hours now. If you visit the site, you'll simply get a blank page. I'm not sure what the situation is, but if I find out before the site goes back up: I'll update this article to mention the reason.

I suspect this downtime may have something to do with Bigred's (the site owner's) attempt to move the site to a new host, to help put an end to the downtime once and for all. But at present, I don't know the actual cause for certain.

April 21st UPDATE: Boxhat has come back online some time within the last 2-3 hours, as of the time of this writing. This also means that the download links that were temporarily broken, will be working again. Still, I intend to start adding file mirrors in case any more downtime occurs again in the future.

I prefer to keep any articles I post strictly related to news, and other items that are of interest or entertaining to TRON fans. But once in a while, something really important will come up that involves the community itself and the state it's in. This is one of those times. And I feel it's important people are made aware of it.

Every gaming community has its dramas . . . and the TRON 2.0 community is certainly not immune to it, despite its small size.

If you're playing TRON 2.0 Multiplayer right now, I think you should read Avi's latest post on his new MySpace blog. Avi is a very active member of the community, who I also think deserves a lot of kudos for his efforts to help bring life back to TRON 2.0 Multiplayer.

Some of the language in his post is a bit strong, but I believe his message is important and everyone playing the game should definitely read it.

An example of a good April Fool's joke is this year's joke at TRON-Sector, which can still be seen as the first news article on the front page at the time of this writing. (TRON-Sector Going Retro.) Nice work, TheReelTodd! :)

However, there was also a bad April Fool's joke (bad, as in it could really fool and scare people) that seems to have originated on the site Kuro5hin. For those of you who don't know: Kuro5hin is a news site, of sorts. One that lets its users write the stories. The problem is, anyone can write anything they want, whether it's true or not.

Of course, the author wrote this fake story early (on March 29th) in an attempt to add legitimacy. A lot of April Fool's pranksters release their jokes early to try and create a greater impact, because most people will think that they won't have a prank pulled on them until the day in question arrives.

Here is why this story is obviously fake and an April Fool's joke:

As mentioned in the comments for this "story", the name of the FBI agent mentioned is "Lirpa Sloof". April Fool's spelled backwards.

If that's not enough, then look at the top of the article. Written by "ewhac" in "Fiction". Busted! Fiction, not fact.

I have to give the writer credit though, for creating a fairly plausible story that probably could fool quite a lot of people. Nice work. But it's important that everyone realizes it's just a prank and not to take it seriously.

Oh, and while an HD-DVD release of TRON would be nice: again, there's no evidence so far that Disney is planning to do an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray release of TRON. On the other hand, I guess it's nice to see this fake story mention TRON 2.0. There are still a lot of people who don't know it exists, and I see proof of that all the time.

According to the file authoring information, these MP3s originally came from The Unofficial TRON Page in 1998, which is no longer around. The files are low quality (24 kbps) but are still clearly understandable.

The first part doesn't contain too much of interest, but the second part certainly does. Not only do we hear from Steven Lisberger (writer and director of TRON), but also David Warner (who played the parts of Dillinger, Sark, and the MCP). I have never heard David being interviewed about TRON before, so it was a treat to hear him talking about it. And to boot, there is also some deleted dialogue from the film I've never heard before.

This dialogue is not anywhere on the 20th Anniversary DVD as an extra. It features programs from the MCP's faction, who talk about Flynn after he first appears in the electronic world. (It can be found at approximately the 15:50 mark of Part 2.) This definitely made the show worth listening to!

There are also a couple of other noteworthy things that can be heard in the special as a whole: such as the fact that Ron Howard admitted he was a video game nut, and that the special is littered with excerpts of songs from the album Pac-Man Fever by Buckner and Garcia. (Which I still have somewhere, from when I was a kid.)

Many thanks to LDSO member 9VoltChicken, for providing me with both the files themselves and the inspiration for this article.

TRON 2.0: Killer App Mod v1.1a- Download this "killer app" that adds many new features to, and fixes problems with, the PC version of the TRON 2.0 game! Adds 16:9 and 16:10 widescreen support, and Français/Deutsch/Italiano/Español language support to the previously English only Unofficial v1.042 Patch. Also fixes broken Multiplayer on both the CD/DVD and Steam versions of TRON 2.0.

TRON 2.0 Mac OSX 10.4 Patch- Download this new installer to help fix the problem where the game won't install on OSX 10.4 (Tiger), or won't accept your serial number (CD key). Go HERE for a workaround that allows the game to run on OSX 10.5 (Leopard) or later.